Comment by 90d
7 hours ago
It is a tricky situation isn't it? We wouldn't have gotten where we are without fossil fuels, but now we realize they are not sustainable to be dependent on and we cannot continue this level of growth. I don't think it is actually possible using current means to power what we have come to know as a "first-world lifestyle" for the majority of the planet.
Thats not true. We don't know if we would be able to be were we at.
There is also no value in this. If we owuldn't known about progress through oil and gas, who would say that we would be unable to get to the same point just a 100 years later?
No own would be hurt if we would have achieved this 100 years later but healthier.
It was also ignored on purpose. Oil companies knew very well, researchers knew. Apparently there were big demonstrations here in germany in the 70ties so our parents knew too.
Life came inbetween apparently.
And from a pure calculation point of view: Its actually very easy to switch over to renewable. As of today, we do have everything we need.
The only thing missing is people doing it.
And just to be clear: it would repay itself.
How would we do the whole industrial revolution thing on whale oil and lumber? Whales would most certainly be extinct by now, thats for sure.
100 years later is an immense amount of extra human suffering, not to say that reaching current level would most certainly take much much longer than 100 extra years.
Im sorry but this whole tirade is just delusional. Its cheaper and better to replace all use of fossil fuels with renewables? Why are we not doing it? Waiting to here your grand conspiracy as of why people are not "doing it".
Why did china build over 50(78GW) new large scale coal plants last year when they could get so much cheaper renewable?
Would you say the same thing about human suffering if the bronze age was 100 years later? And what about all the suffering and deaths from the pollution? Or the massive global wars fossil fuels enabled? Because without massive oil and gas reserves both WWI and WWII would have been far harder to sustain or commit to in the first place.
With such a massive shift in politics and technology with a lack of fossil fuels I think it is near impossible to compare the modern world to a world without those.
Because people didn't care that oil and gas is breaking our planet 100 years ago. Or didn't knew and capitalism made the people in power very very rich very fast.
At that time we still lived and heated normally. For sure the brits destroyed a lot of their trees but you know? They could.
What do you think would have happened if we had a small population collaps at that time and HAD to consume sustainable? We would be less people for sure, but we wouldn't have killed the missing people, they would have not been created in the first place.
We created the first solar panel 1883. The first EV in 1884.
China is still using coal because they are in the same dilemma as we all are: we ignored the impact and keep the status quo. But China build a lot of coal plants for renewing aging ones and they are massivle building out solar.
So why are my neighbours not doing it? Man i talked to sooooo many people about this, are you ready? Because people don't care. Or they don't like new things. Or they don't understand why it would be better.
Yes thats the conspiricy. People can't do the math, don't care about climate change or just don't want something to change.
Everyone i know who has solar panels on the roof, a small battery and heat pump literlay saving money and would never switch back. Every single one of them.
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